Archive for February, 2016

The grand debate – whose responsibility is what? On most real estate transactions there is a real estate sales professional, a mortgage agent/broker, a lender and a real estate lawyer. Each individual has distinct roles but there is some overlap in each.

A property title search is a classic example of this overlap.

Before we can explore this we first need to clear up what people mean when they say “title search”. A title search is in fact the function that the lawyer performs on closing that includes looking at the property’s transfer history, registrations, tax status, water status, survey and more… Lenders often require title insurance to protect the client from short comings in this regard as a result of a lawyer missing something.

When you hear mortgage agents, real estate professionals and even banks referring to a title search they often are referring to the Parcel Register*.

The Parcel Register* is an aspect of the title search that used to be most often performed by lawyers but in recent years have started being requested at earlier stages in a real estate deal by the real estate sales professional, mortgage agent or lender.

Why? Because the Parcel Register* reveals, as of the date of the search, who the legal homeowners are, the legal description of the property, the property identification number of the property, type of ownership, percentage of ownership, dates, registration numbers and amounts of registered encumbrances like liens, charges (mortgages), transfers and more…

The debate comes in because there is a cost associated to requesting a Parcel Register* and so whose responsibility is it to request one? Really it is not a question of responsibility – it’s a question of doing the best job for your client and due diligence to protect yourself by not wasting time on bad deals. A real estate sales professional should be looking at a Parcel Register* as part of their workflow while the lawyer should as their responsibility.

The Parcel Register* will let you know immediately if you are dealing with the legal homeowner and also if there is enough home equity in the property to pay you – whether it is their home or a home being purchased.

Obtaining a Parcel Register* shouldn’t be viewed as a hassle or someone else’s job when it is in fact an opportunity that only stands to benefit you.

The upside here is that Parcel Registers* are easy to obtain online if you’re a GeoWarehouse customer – just add this to your regular due diligence process and you’re off to the races!

Not a GeoWarehouse customer? What are you waiting for? Visit www.geowarehouse.ca today to find out more about all the great tools waiting for you.

*An official product of the Ontario government pursuant to provincial land registration statutes.

We’ve been talking about how we’ve made GeoWarehouse even better – and today we are covering one of our favourite new features: the custom polygon drawing tool – used for searching comparable sales! Check it out!Here is how it works:

Simply select polygon draw on your side menu:

Draw your parameters:

Then add your criteria and voilà – find comparable sales that much quicker!

GeoWarehouse took everything you loved about the tool, made some changes and improvements, and now it is even better than before. The new Comparable Sales features, including the custom polygon drawing tool, make you faster and more efficient.

Why does a client hire a real estate sales professional? Because they want to deal with an expert, a professional in real estate who can guide them through the purchase of a home.

Let’s be realistic – there are many different real estate sale professionals who have:

Different years of experience

Experience in different neighbourhoods

Experience with certain types of properties

Not everyone knows everything about every type of property in every area and quite frankly some professionals are new to the business and are still learning. However, no matter the years of experience or level of knowledge, the last thing any real estate sales professional wants is to be out at a showing and unable to answer questions.

When you show a property, the client could come out with a myriad of questions, especially if they are very interested. Not having answers will leave any client feeling like perhaps they haven’t chosen an expert.

In the past, real estate sales professionals would pull the MLS listings and a GeoWarehouse report for all the properties they planned to show, carting around a stack of paper. While looking at MLS listings and a GeoWarehouse report is still highly relevant – the time has come to explore other ways to ensure that the information is at your fingertips when your client asks.

First things first – a tablet is a must. Laptops are too bulky and smartphones are too small. Many companies like Teranet have developed mobile apps for real estate so that real estate sales professionals can do more on the go – but you want to make sure you can actually do those things efficiently so a tablet is your best bet.

Next – think about a cloud storage tool like Dropbox to store all of your documents online. Install their app on your tablet.

Now when working on deals you can load your GeoWarehouse report and MLS listings into Dropbox and when on the go use your real estate apps to pull up information about the property’s history, sales of other similar homes in the area, neighbourhood demographics and more.

Finally, when your client is ready to seal the deal, on that very tablet you can open up all the required real estate documents in your real estate app, create them and get your client to sign them electronically, later storing those documents in your Dropbox file with your other searches and documentation.

Look – as real estate sales professionals you work hard but you can’t be all things to all people. The tools and technology will really determine whether you are on your A game, or doing the real estate walk of shame.

GeoWarehouse and ViMO can help you become more efficient, giving you the ability to do more on the go. Want more info? Visit us today at www.geowarehouse.ca.

Everyone knows about GeoWarehouse. It has only been the top and most relied upon real estate tool in Ontario for the past 15 years. GeoWarehouse is a research tool with a marketing component, and riding that success, in 2014 Teranet wanted to look at how we could add even more value for real estate sales professionals.

This led to the creation of ViMO, GeoWarehouse’s sexy sister. Initially there was some confusion because some saw ViMO as GeoWarehouse’s mobile app – when in reality they do different things and together form the most competitive toolset on the market today. One main difference – digital signature capability.

When Ontario changed the law this past year, Teranet was ready with ViMO offering full digital signature capability and the ability to create and sign all real estate forms right in the app.

While you can use both products to research a property’s sales history, pull sales comps, estimate values, research neighbourhood sales and demographics – there are other key differences too.

Here are the differences:

More of a marketing tool with a research component:

– In ViMO you can connect to clients, colleagues and suppliers and share information
– Post and market your listings in the app
– Create market insight reports to continually add value to your clients
– Do more on the go

When in the office you can use GeoWarehouse to research a new listing or to look for listings to show your clients. When on the go with your clients you can use ViMO to:

Look up properties

Message other real estate sales professionals to get appointments

You can stand in front of a property and using the augmented reality feature in ViMO use the camera on your iPad to pull all the data your client needs to know about that property

Heat maps help you and your client instantly identify hot pockets within a particular community that are worth looking at.

The introduction of ViMO simply means you can do more. Get rid of the paper, do more on the go and be more efficient. If a client wants to make an offer – no problem. You can negotiate all the paperwork on your tablet, obtain their digital signature and transmit it to the other side with a couple of taps. It really has made the entire process more efficient – saving you time and money and giving you the ability to offer better service to your clients.

We all know how valuable GeoWarehouse is, and now you can add a new set of tools to that virtual tool box with ViMO.

Valentine’s Day is here and love is in the air. We know that not doing our due diligence with respect to a Valentine date can mean a bad Valentine’s Day surprise and real estate is no different. First impressions can be scary because not everything ends up being how it appeared at first glance.

You hope that when you meet your clients they will have all their information, be forthcoming and have a clear vision about what they want – but that is often not the case.

Really on any deal, some investigation concerning the property and homeowner will need to take place. This will mean assessing key issues from a due diligence perspective.

Where a homeowner is concerned, your commission will come out of the sale of the property. You definitely want to ensure that there is enough equity in the property being sold to cover commission and closing costs. If you are representing a buyer then you will certainly want to run a search on the home being purchased to ensure that the seller has sufficient equity to cover closing and real estate fees.

Also, is your client the legal homeowner/the only legal homeowner? So often parents or other people show up on title and the homeowner honestly didn’t realize or forgot. Other times this non-disclosure can bare a more sinister undertone. Verifying who the legal homeowner of a property is ensures that you have connected all the dots.

On the topic of real estate fraud – it is not unlike a Valentine’s date with a player. The fraudster has their agenda and they are willing to pull the wool over your eyes to achieve it. Pay particular attention when performing due diligence to the parties to the transaction. If a lawyer or lender will end up on title to the property, something may be amiss.

Also – did you know that a property details report is like a veritable credit report on a property? Think about it – when you call into your bank they ask you verification questions such as how long have you banked here, is anyone else on your accounts, what was the biggest transaction you made last month, etc. You can do the same using what you know about the property to suss out fraudsters.

The financial and sales history on a property is also important – too many transfers, strange transfer amounts and related transferees are all signals that something could be amiss.

TO avoid a bad Valentine’s Day surprise, whether with a date or with a house, the best thing that you can do is be alert. Due diligence in real estate can help you protect yourself as well as your client.

Don’t get set up – get GeoWarehouse, and do your due diligence in real estate. Visit www.geowarehouse.ca today.

The New GeoWarehouse is coming soon! We took your feedback and worked on what we already had…what we came up with is sure to impress. With several new features and many improvements, GeoWarehouse will be even better. If you liked it before, you’ll love it now!

So what’s new?

Property Search has improved. With the new Omni Search Bar, now you can do a quick search by address, name, PIN or ARN – getting results faster and more efficiently. You can also view all recent search activities and receive real-time suggestions as you type.

Map Search also got an upgrade. The new single-click map search makes it easy to click anywhere on the map to search a property. We now offer quick links to the Property Report and full-screen Street View. We’ve also added location detection to find properties near you!

Want better comparable sales? You got it. With quick access to Comparable Sales Search you can bring up stats quickly. An all-new custom polygon drawing tool allows you to set search criteria even more accurately. Real-time statistics mean you are always up-to-date!

The New GeoWarehouse takes everything you loved about GeoWarehouse and turned it into and even more powerful tool.